35: Alex Armlovich – Housing Shortages, Growth Controls, & Property Taxation

In this episode, we're joined by Alex Armlovich, Senior Housing Policy Analyst at the Niskanen Center. We talk about the housing shortage’s impact on affordability, the harms of growth controls, and the significance of property taxation in housing policy.

We cover:

• Introduction to Assessment Matters podcast 00:00

• Alex’s bio and big ideas 00:35

• Alex’s experience in housing policy at both the state and federal level

• Unlocking supply barriers to grow the supply of housing

• What’s up with housing? 1:52

• Growth controls in the 20th century

• Collision of growth control with sprawl limits (both legal and physical)

• COVID exploding housing markets in secondary cities

• The bottlenecks of housing production

• Competing interests and concerns in housing politics

• Why does property tax policy matter for housing? 6:40

• Land Value Tax — taxing land vs improvements

• Intersection of procedural costs, assessment regimes, and tax policy

• State of municipal property taxation in cities such as Philadelphia and New York 10:26

• History of interest groups and power

• Ongoing lawsuits regarding equity and constitutionality

• Timeline and optimism for fixing housing and property taxation 15:22

• Policy changes vs material progress

• Horizontal vs vertical equity in shifting taxation

• How to contact Alex 18:16

• Twitter: @aarmlovi